[Darris McNeely]: In this class, then we're going to finish up Acts 14 and the story of Barnabas and Paul on their first missionary evangelistic journey through Southern Asia Minor. We left Paul in Derbe, and they were beginning to retrace their steps. And we will pick up the story beginning in verse 21 and repeat where they were in the city of Derbe, where they preached the gospel and made many disciples, then they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch. And in the last class, I mentioned that they could just as easily...easier, shorter, gone through the mountains around Tarsus and then down to Antioch. But they chose to turn around and go back to where he had been beaten in Lystra and where they had been run out of Iconium and Pisidian Antioch.

Now, this is where we get into a bit of the story that talks about Paul's, really his care for the congregations. It would've been easier just to kind of leave it all and gone on back to Antioch, given a report. But they were stoned. They had to leave quickly, there was unrest. And they had people, disciples who had responded to their message. And Paul, and no doubt Barnabas, knew the same thing, that they needed to go back to encourage them.

Remember, Barnabas is the son of encouragement. And so, they had to go back and do that. But as we're going to see, there is something else to what they are doing. And let's look at what the text tells us. I think that in verse 22 as they went back through these cities of Lystra, Iconium, and Pisidian Antioch, “they were strengthening the souls of the disciples,” strengthening the souls of the disciples. Think about that term. In other words, they were encouraging them, they were bolstering them. How does a minister, or how does a Church, a pastoral heart like Paul had do this? How does he strengthen the disciples? Think about that.

Well, you know, one of the ways we get strengthened today is we go to Church. We fellowship with one another. We enjoy one another's company in the Church with like minds, shared faith, and duties. And we love one another. We care for one another. And by doing so, you're strengthened, aren't you? I hope you are, when you go to Church. I mean, you know, a Church congregation needs to create the environment of peace and fellowship based on love to where people are strengthened when they go to Church. They're strengthened by the fellowship, they're strengthened by the sermon, the messages that are given by the life of the congregation. And a healthy congregation will provide that for people.

And so, the very presence of Paul and Barnabas back in these cities, for at least the Sabbath or maybe more, we're not...we don't know the length of time that they spent in each place, but their presence spoke volumes that they were not just out for their money or their numbers, they loved these people. And their lives were on the line. In Lystra, they saw that, Paul being beaten. And now he's back there in the same city where they had beaten him, walking through the same gate, probably walking by at the same spot where he lay when he walked back into the city. And, you know, do you think he was traumatized by that spot? I don't think so.

But you could...you know, you could imagine him maybe a shudder or, you know, "Hey, well, that's a...I remember what happened there just a few weeks ago." And the people saw this man of courage there. And so, that gave them courage to go back to Church, to go back and to be a part of things. Same up in Iconium and Pisidian Antioch. They hadn't been beaten there, but remember in Iconium, there was going to be...they were going to be stoned. That's why they left. There was a plot, there was talk about that.

Exhorting them to continue in the faith and saying, “We must, through many tribulations, enter the Kingdom of God.” And so, they exhorted them to continue in the faith, continue their faith, their belief, Gentiles keeping the Sabbath, Gentiles learning about Christ, learning about the true God, and no longer worshiping idols, Zeus, Hermes, and all the others.

And so, they were learning the commandments. They were learning the law and the word of God. And what Paul had told them to...you know, if he had said to them, "You know, turn from these gods that are nothing, these useless things," he had to be teaching them about the true God and that idolatry and imagery and having all of these other ideas were nothing, and they were violating the commandments. So, Paul was giving them sound doctrine. If you're going to teach a group of people to continue in the faith, you're going to have to have, you know, let's say we would call it doctrine, and it's going to have to be well spelled out, which we have a fundamentals of belief, don't we? And our class, we go through all of those here at United. We have 20 fundamentals, and we have many other teachings and aspects that define our faith.

But I'm not saying that Paul had 20 in his repertoire at that time, but certainly, he was teaching them the Sabbath and the...you know, the festivals and not to get caught up in their pagan festivals. And they had plenty of pagan festivals, Dionysius, you know, festivals to all the different gods and goddesses that would've been a part of their annual calendar that they would've had to turn from and stop keeping and that would've segregated them from their towns folk.

So, they needed to be bolstered in that by an additional message and just strengthened to stay with what they were learning. And he tells them that entering into the Kingdom of God is not without trial, challenges. And Paul was a living example of it. He had survived a stoning. Now, this is our first recording of a stoning. And remember, Paul held the cloaks and the coats of those who stoned Stephen, back in the story there. It's where we were introduced to Saul. And now he's experiencing a bit of his own medicine. But they see him doing that. So, he probably had some lessons to draw from that. And so, they're strengthening the disciples, and they are continuing into faith. Now, look at verse 23.

Acts 14:23 “So, when they had appointed them elders in every Church and prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord in whom they had believed.”

So, they appointed elders in these congregations in Lystra, Iconium, Pisidian Antioch with prayer and with fasting. So, even in verse 23, we have a kind of a method, if you will, to how such selections should be done. We've already seen that in the appointment of Barnabas and Paul to go out in Acts 13:1 by the Church, and then earlier in Acts 6, where we had seven deacons chosen, and certainly back in Acts 1 when they chose Mathias. This is all done with prayer, fasting, beseeching God's will, His guidance, the mind of God discerning that in the process by which then they commend them to the Lord in whom they had believed.

So, really, we have three different things here that we can look at, the strengthening of the disciples, you know, showing up, being present. You know, we don't...I mentioned this before, never underestimate your presence at Church. I mean, don't go to Church when you're sick and, you know, spread contagion. But make it a point to go to Church when, you know, you're in a bad attitude, or you may think, “Oh, I don't want to hear that person speak. I've heard 'em speak, and whatever,” or, “It's too long today. I'm tired. Long week.” You cannot get to that. We are all subject to it. And the weeks can be long and grinding and stressful, classes, work, family issues, and you just want to sleep or you want to stay...you don't want to get dressed up, you don't want to drive 30 miles, 50 miles. And yeah, I get it. And, you know, maybe your congregation's a little bit quirky, troubled, or you got quirky people, or you got troubled people. And everybody does. They probably think you're quirky. They might think you're troubled. Well, you need to be there too.

You know, we can grind on each other. And I will say all of us at times ought to do a check on ourselves just to make sure we don't, by our conversations, our complaints, our moaning, our complaining even about the minister, the Church or this or that, that we just grind on people in our congregation. Yeah, we're all human. Yeah, there are problems. Yes, all that happens.

But let me tell you something. You start talking about that in your congregation every week, week in and week out, it is going to put a negative pall upon your congregation. You'll get a reputation. And you don't want that. And you don't want to be one of those that are creating that for new people, for older people. You'll find yourself, in a sense, isolated. And you have to...you've got to watch that.

You've got to realize that people are coming to Church for so many different reasons. But ultimately, the reason to come is because we love God, we're worshiping God, we're obeying God by not forsaking the assembly of ourselves together. But we're going there to be strengthened because we know that that's where we get the spiritual strength through a message, sometimes just through the fellowship. But if we pray and we believe as we ask in an opening prayer for God and Christ to be there, then if we believe what we pray and we say amen to in a congregational setting, no matter how small or whatever, then we must act as if we believe that in our words, in our conduct, must then bear on that. And we create, and we become a committee of one, we create a place where the disciples are strengthened.

If we would all do that and take it upon ourselves to get to know the ones that are sitting off in a corner by themselves who come in late that you don't know that are not part of your group, your circle of friends, they haven't been there for 40 years like you have or your family has. And, you know, sometimes I know we do not understand today what it takes for a brand new person to walk through the door of any of our congregations. Our growth has not been that strong in recent years. We've had challenges that have diminished our congregations. People have gotten older. COVID has decimated some of our congregations. And when new people come to a place on the Sabbath for the first time, keeping the Sabbath with a different group of people that they don't know, that's a challenge, that's hard. Think about it.

Think about you walking into a classroom of...you know, in a university or college that you don't know anybody. Think about going into a workplace where you don't know anybody. You're transferred someplace, you get a new job, you don't know anybody. Think about how difficult that might be. I mean, I don't... You know, I come in here, this building, I know everybody. I come in here, we know each other. But, you know, we've got to stretch ourselves.

But when people come into the Church and they're new, we have to show love. We have to show that, “Yeah, what's your name? I'm so-and-so, welcome. You know, would you like a hymnal?” And then take them to somebody. If you have to go and get your job finished setting up for Church, make sure that you don't leave them standing. Take them to somebody. All of that serves to strengthen our congregations. And when we do those things, we're helping to build the Church. I can go on and on and on about that, but the sound teaching has got to be there as well void of, you know, personal speculation and vein talk that can detract or even false teaching. That has to be, you know, good solid sermon instruction.

And then third in all of this is the appointment of elders, the appointment of elders, a pastor. We go to great lengths in the United Church of God to make sure that our congregations have pastors. And some men have three congregations, some have four, maybe there's somebody out there that's got even five. And that's the challenge to keep up with. No matter what the size of the group is, or spread out over long distances, but the appointment of elders is important, a designated spiritual leader.

Paul knew that. He knew that someone had to be in charge and responsible and helping them to continue in them faith and strengthening them in a role as an elder. We're watching, we're seeing here a beginnings of organization within the Church. It's centered on the local congregation. Scholars debate all of this and then as they see with what happened in later Church history as the Church changed doctrinally and took on more of a Roman approach, the structure of the Church, the hierarchy grew and things changed certainly as a result of false teaching that came in, but even the structure.

You know, when we study the Passover controversy of Polycarp in the second century, and remember that Polycarp was the Bishop of Smyrna, one of the Churches, seven Churches, and he went to Rome over here to consult with I believe it was an Anicetus or Victor, one of those two, I get 'em mixed up, over the issue of Easter because the Roman Church was keeping Easter, but the Churches in Asia Minor were still keeping the Passover and unleavened bread in the Holy Days.

And so, this is the middle of the second century A.D. But the attitude that you discern in the history from the bishop of Rome, you're beginning to see this hierarchical orthodox approach where the bishop at Rome wanted all of the Churches in a doctrinal agreement, but it was false doctrine. He wanted them all to go to Sunday and all to keep Easter and no longer keep this Jewish Sabbath and Passover. And in doing so, that Church then grew and grew, and it becomes a problem...becomes the way by which the Trinity teaching is ultimately enforced in Orthodox teaching later on. That is in contrast to what we see developing here in Acts with Paul and the Church, at least in the story in Acts.

And while today we have an organization that is unified, it's administered under, let's say, a home office situation in the Church and we have a structure of ministers and regional pastors, senior pastors, we have bylaws in constitution to ensure continuity, order, and even protection of assets as well as doctrine in the Church, we are very conscious that we continue to look at Acts, Christ's teachings, Paul's pastoral epistles to make sure that how we treat one another, minister to member, member to member, minister to minister is on Godly principles. It has to be. And so, you know, all of these kind of work in that, the strengthening of the Church, the body, the ministry, faithful teaching, proper appointment, all meant to help keep the Church together. In the first century, they had a lot of forces working at it to pull it apart and we do today in the 21st century.

And so, these things that we're looking at here and primarily out of Acts, I think is just...there's a first century stability there where we can peel away the centuries of certainly Catholic, Protestant Church tradition, and sometimes even our own tradition. There's no secret that in United, we set up a different organizational structure of the Church than we had in our past. We don't have a pastor general. We have a council of elders, a ministry, a president, people rotate around. We have appeals processes if there is abuse to keep the relationships strong, to strengthen the disciples.

And so, we have learned and gone to the new testament to learn that. So, what we're seeing here is Paul doing something in a sense from scratch, but with a knowledge of how their...you know, an organization has to have certain structure. He had been a pharisee. He understood certain things about the synagogue and the Judaism and the word of God, even from the old testament. So, he knew there had to be some type of structure, and that's what he's doing here. But it's, you know, time, tradition and other problems created a whole different structure for false Christianity. And you know, it's just a continual challenge for us to learn. But when we take it upon ourselves, then we can come closer to some of these things that we are seeing. So, let's look at verse 24 then.

Acts 14:24-25 “After they had passed through Pisidia, they came down to Pamphylia.” And what it's describing here is Paul's travels back through this yellow line back to Pisidian Antioch, and then to Pamphylia. And then it says, “They came down to Perga.” I'm going to zip ahead here in my slides to show this here. “They came back down to Perga, and then they went to Attalia.”

All right? This particular map doesn't show it, so we don't have it on the map here. But Perga, remember, was where they came in when they started this, and they went up to Antioch. Now they come back to Attalia, which is just a stones throw from Perga. So, they're in the same neighborhood.

This is the harbor today in Attalia, Turkey. And it looks much the same as it did in the first century when it says here, they came and they preached in Perga, and they went Attalia. Attalia is the ancient name. Today, it's called Antalya. But it's the same place. Nice, beautiful seaside village and city. Actually, it's a city there in Southern Turkey.

I spent a couple of nights there, got on a boat, one of these little boats here, and took a tour of the harbor, and actually, we drove down near where they would've gotten off the boat as they came in on their...at the beginning of this entire journey. And it's quite a lovely area. So, this is where Antalya is, and a view of this little picturesque harbor. And they go from here.

This is another view of it here with the mountains, Southern Taurus Mountains there in the background. A lot of Russians live there today. It's a Russian retreat, and it's a beautiful...really it's a gorgeous area there in Southern Turkey. And that's the prowl of our boat as we went out on that day, and kind of just did a little boat tour. But that's a scene that Paul and Barnabas would've seen right there as they went out of that harbor on their way back to Antioch. And so, when you look at this map here, they're right here at Attalia next to Perga. The yellow line shows them they're going to sail all the way back to Seleucia and then up to Antioch, which is what it says here.

Acts 14:25-27 “They preached the word in Perga.” So, they stayed for some time there, “went to Attalia, and from there they sailed to Antioch.” They got a boat that would've been going there, paid their passage “where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work for which they had completed.” So, they go back to Antioch where it all began, and there, “they gathered the Church together” in verse 27. “They reported all that God had done with them, and that he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles.”

So, they stayed there a long time with the disciples. Remember, Antioch had funded this trip. So, they're giving basically a report to the people as to what happened, how they spent their money, the fruits of their labor, and all that had happened in this. And there's, you know, Paul is going to go back over this area in his second journey. He's going to go back and revisit these areas. And we'll talk about that when we come to that.

But the report to Antioch then is a...completes it, and they come back here. So, that ends the first journey of Paul. And before we get to the second journey of Paul, we have an interesting situation that takes place. And as we turn the page to chapter 15, we are introduced to that because now Paul comes back and there's a bit of a time, but now a problem comes to the fore and Luke just moves right into it, and directly without a lot of other fanfare. So, let's pick that story up beginning in chapter 15. We won't finish it all in this class, but at least let's begin here because something was happening.

Acts 15:1 It says “Certain men came down from Judea.” Now, Judea puts it back in Jerusalem. Again, and so, this map will show you what happened. “Certain men came from Jerusalem, or from Judea and came to Antioch, that's the idea, and they taught the brethren now who they are.” They're not named. We'll find out. You know, we can mold...discern a little bit about who they are and what their motive is. But let's see what they teach. “They teach the brethren that unless you're circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.”

So, here's the issue of circumcision, again, coming up. And the bridging of the divide between the Jews and the Gentiles, which is the great part of the story here in Acts and in the new testament setting, and what they had to surmount, what they had to overcome.

He said that unless you're circumcised according to the custom of Moses, and we know that that is a very important part of the covenant that God made with Abraham. Any male Jew was circumcised. And, you know, it was done on the eighth-day ritual, tradition going back a long period of time, and it set the Jewish people apart from the rest of the Gentile world. Gentiles didn't do that. And we talked about that and what that meant back in this time of the Seleucids and Antiochus Epiphanies and Jews wanting to become Greeks and all.

Well, now, as Gentiles are coming into the Church, this is an issue that has to be resolved. And it shows that some within the Church didn't fully yet accept what Peter had shown by his mission to Cornelius, what had already happened with the Ethiopian eunuch, the baptisms of the people in the city of Samaria, and Gentiles that would've been involved there, and all of this continuing story that was showing that God has opened the door of salvation to all of them.

Remember, we read that back in chapter 9 and 10. Some in the Church didn't yet accept that. Some called this grouping of people, they're Christian, but they've also got...they're holding on to certain Jewish ideas. Sometimes they're called Christian Pharisees. Now, remember, the Pharisees are a sect of the Jews. Paul was a Pharisee. You had the Sadducees. You had the Essenes. But we just read about the Pharisees and the Sadducees in the new testament period. And those of the circumcision then that are called, are those that appear here and they seem to pop up among Jews throughout Paul's ministry.

This is not going to be the end of it, even with this particular settlement of the issue in Acts 15, because we'll see that Paul will be hounded by people for essential reasons in terms of his teaching, what they perceive about his teaching, thinking that he teaches against the law of Moses. And it's the idea of this Judaizing aspect and part of the Church, a wing of the Church if you want to look at it that way. They're not necessarily opposed to Paul and Barnabas going out to the Gentiles and the mission to the Gentiles, but they want these Gentiles, they want circumcision to apply to them. And this is the problem. It's kind of the same... It gets back into some of the other traditions that the Jews had about eating with Gentiles, which was a tradition they added. It's not a part of the Mosaic law, but they had added that.

Remember Paul...or Peter said, you know, when he went to Cornelius, he said, “You know it's not right for a Jew to eat with a Gentile.” That was something added by tradition. And that's important to remember as we go into this particular story here, and what has to be settled in regard to this.

Now understand something else. The early Church is quite different, let's say, than the Church today. There were some in the Church who were, as I say, Christian Pharisees. They maybe even literally were Pharisees, had been still associating with that. But they had become a believer, they had accepted Christ. But they still had their habits, they still had some of their beliefs, and it was difficult to change here and to make a transition to the full understanding of the new covenant that is now in action and that is working its way, massaging its way into the Church because clearly, circumcision to them was something that they felt was still important, still valid and necessary in terms of the actual physical right.

Now, throughout all of this discussion, it's important to remember that circumcision is still a teaching of the Bible. And we still believe in circumcision, but we understand that the circumcision is that of the heart and not a part of a requirement of the Mosaic law. There are other reasons from a health standard and otherwise to continue with circumcision. And that gets into a big debate when you get out into medical fields today. And there are people who think that that is abusive and radical and teach against it in the medical profession. I've heard and read some of those debates.

You know, by tradition, we still do that within the Church, and many other people continue to do it as well. So, it's not just something that we do, it's still done in the world today, but not in all cultures, not across all. But it's not a...except outside of the...except within the Jewish community. It's still a part of the ritual there according to Judaism. But beyond that, it is still done in Christian circles and otherwise for other reasons. But it comes down to here as it says, “Uhat unless you are circumcised, you cannot be saved.” And that has been settled, but it hasn't been accepted throughout the Church.

Acts 15:2 “Therefore, when Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and dispute with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders about this question.”

They wanted it solved. I did point this out earlier in a previous class to remember as an important feature of the Church at Antioch, and that was that they didn't want doctrinal unity with the rest of the Church. This group in Antioch started under unique circumstances, gave funds, they gave food during a famine earlier to the members in Jerusalem. Remember that. And they now funded Paul and Barnabas to go out. So, they are part of a Church.

They're not looking at themselves necessarily as kind of the Gentile faction or the Gentile wing. They see themselves as a part of a larger body, a spiritual body, as we would define it. I think that they certainly were beginning to understand that. And they wanted this issue solved so that they were not looked at as second-class Christians, renegades, you know, Gentiles, in that sense, and not fully a part of the Church and just like the Jew, because that's what had already been settled.

Remember when we go back to what Peter had said in Acts 11:17 when Peter gave a report to the Jews in Jerusalem. That's important to remember here, you know. You might want to make a connection to what's happening here in chapter 15 to back to chapter 11, and what Peter said because that's kind of how you connect all the dots here in the story, that they had challenged Peter in going to the home of Cornelius. And he came and explained it to them. And he said, “You know, the same thing happened to them that happened to us. The Holy Spirit is manifest through the speaking of tongues.” And at the end of verse 17.

Acts 11:17 They said, “God has granted to the Gentiles repentance to life.”

And the people in Antioch knew this. Now, the Book of Galatians, you're going through Galatians right now, shows that even Peter himself had certain, you know, hangups because Paul had to challenge him in Antioch because he himself separated from the Gentiles in some type of communal setting there. And, you know, he had a weak moment and Paul challenged him about it. And that was a tradition, as we're going to see, that had been put upon people. It was a yoke, and it was an unbearable burden.

Acts 15:3 “Being sent on their way by the Church, they passed through Phoenicia, Samaria describing the conversion of the Gentiles, and they caused great joy to all the brethren.”

And so, back in Samaria, remember where Philip had gone earlier. So, if you look at this yellow dotted line from Antioch and trace it down, they had swerved over toward Phoenicia, but then came on down in the northern area of the land of Israel. They had stopped in Samaria where there was a Church, where there was a body of people explaining what was...probably telling them about all their trips through Galatia, and that God was calling people, and that brought joy to the brethren.

Acts 15:4 “When they had come to Jerusalem, they were received by the Church and the apostles and the elders, and they reported all things that God had done with them.”

And so, Barnabas, Paul, and certain others, they're not named, go up. So, there's a delegation from Antioch. No doubt Gentiles were included in this, maybe even some who had been mentioned in Acts 13 that did not...were not chosen to go out. We don't know. We can just speculate about that. And so, they reported what God had been doing and put their...you know, put another seal of proof upon it.

Acts 15:5 Tells us, “Though, that some of the sect of the Pharisees who believed.”

So this is this grouping of Pharisees who what? They believed. So, they're Christian Pharisees. Christian Pharisees is probably the best way to understand it and call it. They said it is necessary to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses on this point of circumcision.

Now, it's not the law of Moses that is at question here. And when a careful reading of what ultimately is decided and written down shows that, as well as the teaching of Paul. You're going through Galatians right now, and that letter's the heart and core of the matters of the law and the covenant, how that works. But, as Luke writes it here, it's the law in regard to these ceremonial matters, these matters in this case of circumcision and where all of that fits now within the structure of the new covenant and what is carried into that new covenant, what is not carried into that new covenant, and that's what we're seeing a part of that.

Other letters of Paul, particularly Galatians, and others will, you know, flesh out some of that. Even the book of Revelation does, as we will see in a moment. So, here's this Jerusalem council. I've talked to you about all of the Church councils of Nicaea and Constantinople in the fourth century on the issue of the Trinity as we've talked about that topic in doctrines class.

But for all intents and purposes, and the biblical record, this is our first Church council. And it's a true Church council. It is the apostles and elders in Jerusalem that are still holding to the faith once delivered. They're not debating the Trinity, they're not debating the Sabbath or whatever. They're debating this issue of circumcision and the role of the Gentiles in terms of salvation within the Church.

Acts 15:6-7 “And so, they all come together to consider this matter.” And so, they had some type of a facility, a room to meet in, and they come together. Verse 7 “When there had been much dispute, Peter rose up.”

So, how was it organized? Did they just start talking 8:00 in the morning, 7:00 in the morning? Maybe. Maybe they...you know, they were talking in small groups before they came, when they came. Was there a schedule and an agenda? When we have our council of elders meetings, we have an agenda. And when we meet in our annual general conference meetings, we have a detailed agenda. I don't think necessarily they had it quite structured that way at this time, but I could be wrong. I don't want to think...give the impression that we're better at organization than they were. That's not what I'm saying.

But there are things you can look at said here by Luke, and they're, to me, a little bit humorous, you know, because we're dealing here now with the ministry, ministers coming together. And it says there's much dispute. Wow. Who would've thought? A room full of ministers come together to talk about doctrine, teaching, Church affairs, and disputes. What? What's going on here?

Some of you are smiling. You think that you know, yeah, that happens. And strong-willed men have their opinions, strong-willed women have their opinions too. And when it comes to Church issues, we all have our opinions, don't we? And when it comes to doctrine, practice, teaching, we've got it, everybody's got an opinion. And the trick is our opinions have got to be lined up with scripture and then coupled with the right approach and attitude as we work through understanding teaching and everything else. So, at some point, Peter rose up.

Acts 15:7 “And he said to them, ‘Men and brethren, you know that a good while ago God chose among us that by my mouth, the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe.’”

So, he goes right back to the earlier report that we read again. And in his recounting of that, it's a summation. And no doubt, they all did know that. That report of Peter from his trip to Cornelius and Caesarea was known. And that event was solid, it was documented. You know that God has chosen among us that the mouth of the Gentiles should hear the word and believe.

Acts 15:8-9 “God who knows the heart, acknowledge them by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us,” same thing that he reported on, “and made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.”

Now, there's a lot in verse 8 and 9 to think about here. God, who knows the heart. Remember back with Cornelius. He was a devout man who gave alms to the Jews, had a good reputation. He was a Roman centurion, a Roman soldier who was thought highly by the Jews. His heart was right before he was ever...received the Holy Spirit. The account shows that. He took pleasure in giving, and he did not treat the Jews as dogs, which most Roman soldiers did.

His heart was right. God knew that, He knew who He was calling Peter to. And Cornelius wasn't the only Gentile at that time. There were other God fearers. And Peter says He acknowledged that by giving them the spirit just as He did to us. You know, conversion is of the heart. The change of mind and repentance is of the heart.

When we come together in the Church and to strengthen one another, brethren, what we have in this Church is a fellowship of the heart. Think about that. It's a fellowship of the heart or it's nothing. If it doesn't begin there with a heart toward God and a heart toward one another, we have nothing but a bunch of teachings, doctrines, yes, structure, yes, but we don't have the...we won't have the love of God, the spirit of God moving through us, producing a unity of the spirit that all of this does.

We talk about unity, and Paul talks about a unity of the Spirit in the book of Ephesians. Unity is a spiritual manner, first and foremost. Again, I'll get back on my high horse about, you know, all the Church splits. And as I said the other day, what are you going to do when it's your Church? What are you going to do when it's your Church?

Well, I hope that you will have a Church that is unified, but I hope that you will have a Church that has a heart, that your heart is right toward God because it's built on faith, right teaching, sound doctrine, which produces a healthy Church and that, you know, you want to have a Church that doesn't do like we did, split. Then you create a fellowship with the heart. You work as a committee of one, to have a heart toward God and to have your heart purified by faith, as verse 9 says. That's the distinction.

“He made no distinction between us and them,” he says. He said, “Between the Jews and the Gentiles, purifying their hearts by faith.” We get crossways with one another. We get crossways in so many different ways because we focus on maybe distinctives and not focus on the heart. Yes, we are different. You keep the Sabbath, you're going to be different. You go to the Feast of Tabernacles and you don't keep Christmas, that's distinctive. You're going to be different.

I was different at age 12 and have been all my life because my mom took the Christmas tree out and I didn't go to the Christmas pageant, and I didn't sing the Christmas carols, and I didn't go trick or treating, and I went to the Feast of Tabernacles every year. I had a distinction. All right? But I was learning something, as you have been.

So, there are distinctions and we have distinctive teachings, but we better be very careful that we let the heart of God, motivated by a love for God and a love for one another be stronger in our thinking toward one another and even toward the world than just focusing only on distinctives because that will divide you, that will divide us. And that will not give you the true love of God to take the gospel to the world and to recognize that people need that truth because we're only focusing on the distinctive that makes us distinctive from them and/or better than them because of who we are. We're not better because of who we are. We're only better because God's forgiven us.

Make sure you have a fellowship of the heart. That's where Peter begins this discussion about circumcision. And so, we'll hold off the remainder of this until the next class. I wanted to lay that down as a foundation to build on what Paul had been already doing as they come together as a group of ministers to consider this monumental issue in the Church. So, with that, we'll pick that up next class and what Peter really begins to talk about in verse 10.

All right, we are at Chapter 4 in the book of Acts. And we have covered the two sermons that Peter has given in Chapter 2 and Chapter 3. And in the last class, we talked about the keys that Peter was bringing out regarding the resurrection of Christ, and the implications of the Jews and their part in that, a lot of that was repeated in Chapter 3. And keep in mind now that what began in Chapter 3 was when Peter and John went into the temple at the hour prayer, the evening sacrifice, the ninth hour, which is 3:00 in the afternoon. And that's when the lame man who was there, Peter healed him and that created a great sensation among the people as he got up and leaped and walked. Everybody knew him, he was probably one of those fixtures at the temple of one who was begging.

And then Peter, they all kind of move and gravitate over to this area of the temple right here on the eastern end of it called Solomon's Porch, z large portico area, huge columns that were in there. And in that is where the events of Chapter 3 took place. I did show you some pictures on that, anybody that is watching this online and maybe want to refer to it earlier, a class on this when we showed some pictures of how that probably looked. But we're still in the temple area, and what's important to realize is we now move into Chapter 4 is that we are still at about on that same timeframe. It's past 3:00 and it's moving toward the evening hours. And so, a lot has happened, with the healing, with the commotion, with the sermon, and it has attracted the attention of the Jewish authorities. And so, we're still on that particular day, late in the afternoon, and that's important to remember as we see what happens here. As we open up in Chapter 4, then in verse 1.

Acts 4:1 It says, "As they spoke to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them."

This is the power structure of the temple and the first-century community of Jews or Judaism in Jerusalem at this time. We have a captain of the temple, we have the Sadducees, and at this particular point, it'd be good just to kind of review a little bit about the different political parties that we're dealing with. We've got a mention here, a captain of the temple. This guy is kind of like the police commissioner. The Jews were allowed to run their own affairs in Jerusalem, and especially in the temple, a very sensitive area. And they had their own kind of police force, if you will, among the Jews. And this individual, the captain of the temple would've been a priest. And he had, let's say, the highest policing authority to keep the order among the people there so that the Roman authorities, the Roman government, and the legions wouldn't have to interfere.

Now, you should understand something, again, I'll just point in on the map here. The Romans did keep a garrison of soldiers in the temple. That is why you have right here, the Antonia Fortress. There's no remains of that. There's actually a wall that was probably a part of that fortress that you can see if you ever go to the Temple Mount, but there's otherwise no other remains of it. But it was an elevated garrison that allowed the Roman soldiers to look down over the temple area. And if there was a disturbance, a riot, then they could come down and break it up. And we will find that they do that later in the Book of Acts when Paul is there giving an offering and the Jews all gang up on the Apostle Paul at that time, and the Roman soldiers come down. But at this point with the apostles, with Peter and John and the preaching that they're doing, the Romans don't get involved, but it is, let's say, a lesser force of the Jews allowed to police their own affairs until it would get out of order and then the Romans would step in.

The one thing you should remember and know about the Roman Empire and the Roman legions is that order was paramount. They didn't like riots, they didn't like insurrections, rebellions at any point, place, or time within the empire. I'm talking about the whole Roman Empire of the day. They met it with full force. That's why the image of Daniel, of the Roman Empire, first in the dream of Nebuchadnezzar in Chapter 2 where the Roman Empire is portrayed as that portion of that figure, which is iron, remember? And then in Chapter 7 of Daniel, the fourth beast that Daniel sees, identified as the Roman Empire, is a great and dreadful and terrible beast with teeth of iron who rips and snorts and stomps. And it's a perfect illustration of the Roman Empire and the legions and their interest on keeping order. And that's how they became an empire and endured so long is they met with the full iron force of their power, any threat to them. And so, that's kind of operating a part of the background here.

And so, when we see the captain of the temple and the Sadducees come upon them, we've got now the beginning of the power structure, at least within the Jewish community, that is beginning to come against the Church. And that's what's happening here and this is our first indication of that. Now, later, the Romans will be involved and Paul will be a prisoner. And as he goes out in preaching, then he will interact or encounter Rome and it's powered its government, and he'll have to deal with that, we'll talk about that. But for now, it is in Jerusalem, it's in the confines of the temple, and it's the Jewish authority. And we find identified here, this kind of this police captain of the temple police, and the Sadducees come upon them. All right.

So, the captain of the temple is a chief official. He has an authority over most of the priests, but under the high priest, he was probably second in terms of rank to the high priest of the time. And usually, the people that were a part of this were a part of the Sadducees as well, the cast of the Sadducees, the political party that is the dominant upper-class party of the time, the Sadducees, and they're mentioned here. Now, you will also encounter, and we know from the gospels, we have another group of people, we'll see these in Acts called the Pharisees. All right? And they are not explicitly mentioned at this point, but the Sadducees are. Now, verse 2 says.

Acts 4:2  "Being greatly disturbed that they taught the people and preached in Jesus the resurrection from the dead."

So, "they" are the authorities. They're upset, they're disturbed, and what is it they're disturbed? Because the apostles are preaching. They've got a crowd around them, and they are preaching Jesus and the resurrection from the dead. This is a core to their preaching. This is the core of the gospel. Again, this is why we have in our mission statement of the United Church of God, that we preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God. And there is one gospel, it is the Gospel of God called by Paul and Romans, but it includes the very truth of Christ's life, death, and His resurrection, as well as His position as king, and the coming king, and the king of the Kingdom of God that will be brought to this earth. We will see all of this develop as we go through the Book of Acts and the preaching of the Church.

But here in these sermons in the early part of the book, it's very clear the focus that is there, and this is what is upsetting them because this is the power group that engineered the death of Christ. They thought then that that would do away with the problem and the impact Jesus was having among the Jews, not only in Jerusalem but in Galilee throughout Judea. And as we see in the gospels, they engineered His death. And now, his followers, the disciples haven't given up. They haven't gone away, you know, they didn't go back fishing or collecting taxes or whatever their previous employment was. They've stayed at the job. And we have a viable church that we have been witnessing here and the Sadducees are very upset about that.

Now, a little bit about the Sadducees. Most of the priests that were in Jerusalem working in the temple, descendants of Levi and the Levitical priesthood that were all a part of the entire temple worship structure, most of those priests were of the Sadducee persuasion, let's say the party of the Sadducees. And the Sadducees had certain inherent beliefs that they had developed over a long period of time, several generations during this period leading up to where we are now in the first part of the third-century A.D., the life of Christ now into the life of the Apostles. The Jews have gone through a few hundred years of being back in the land after the Babylonian captivity when they were allowed to go back during the time of Cyrus and then with the work of Ezra, Nehemiah that we read about in scripture. And as we are beginning now to get into in the Book of Daniel with the Jews there, Daniel 11 talks a great deal about the impact of the Greeks upon the Jews in the land. And so, they are developing an inherent culture and have over a period of several years.

Other groups will develop that are not mentioned in the Bible. We've talked about this, the Zealots and the Essenes. The Zealots were more militant, they led to the rebellion beginning in 65, 66 A.D. against Rome. The Essenes were the Dead Sea people. We talked about this the other day. They thought everybody else was pretty liberal. Up here, the Sadducees, Pharisees, and they said, "A pox on your house we're going down to the Dead Sea," and they established their commune down there. We know about them because of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the remnants of that community that archeology has developed.

But back to the Sadducees. They had certain beliefs that they had developed by this time. They did not believe in a bodily resurrection, that's one very key. All right? They didn't believe in a resurrection. So, with the Church preaching about the resurrected Jesus of Nazareth, that they engineered the death of, this is a major clash. They obviously don't even want any mention of that, but it counters even their inherent belief of not believing in a resurrection. Now, the Pharisees did believe in a resurrection, and we will see this come into play again later in the Book of Acts when Paul is arrested in the temple because Paul's a Pharisee, but he knows that his crowd is mixed between Pharisees and Sadducees. And he throws like a little bomblet into the discussion what he was preaching, which was the resurrection of Christ. And that got the Pharisees and the Sadducees arguing among themselves and he kind of skated out of that, but we'll talk about that story later.

So, the Sadducees are kind of the dominating class. They also did not believe in the coming age of the Messiah. They were not looking even in their day for the prophecies of the Messiah to be fulfilled. Why? Because they thought that that had already been fulfilled beginning with the Maccabees and the revolt against the Greeks back in the second-century. This is the timing of Antiochus Epiphanes and the abomination of desolation that we've begun to talk about in the Book of Daniel. And they then developed a belief that that was the age that began the Messianic Age, and has continued under their descendants.

Now, in the first-century A.D. here, they with their dominant position claim to represent the orthodoxy, the dominant teaching of the Jewish community at the time. And so, the idea that as the Church preaches Christ resurrected, and that He is king and He is going to come again and reign, this runs flat into the face of the aristocratic group. And they can't abide that because people are now believing in a resurrected Messiah who will look to come and reestablish the kingdom of Israel and they've got to put this out.

So, the Sadducees who hold some prime seats in what is called the Sanhedrin...The governing body among the Jewish groupings at this time is called the Sanhedrin. It's kind of like their congress, their council, got to make sure I get this spelled right, Sanhedrin. And this is what Peter and John are going to be brought before right now. They're going to be brought before the council, the ruling body of the Jewish authority at this time. And they, again, want to squash all of this because they want to keep the order and not have it spill over, and the Romans come in. And so, this is what they are afraid of. And, you know, the work of the apostles, Peter and John is quite annoying to the Sadducees because of what they are teaching. So, we look at verse 3.

Acts 4:3 And it says, "Then they laid hands on them and put them in custody until the next day for it was already evening."

So, as I opened up by saying, we're still in the same day as the beginning of Chapter 3 in terms of the time sequence. And so, it's getting toward dark and twilight and, you know, they don't want to deal with it when night comes. You have to understand, put yourself into a first-century ancient world setting, when darkness came, the streetlights didn't come on. Why? Well, obviously, there were no streetlights, no electricity at that time. Oil lamps would start to burn, but that was nowhere near enough to illuminate the city or any neighborhood and even the temple with enough light to carry on the business. And so, it created a whole different atmosphere and structure than what we might be used to today when, you know, our lights automatically come on and we move into nighttime, but in most cases, you know, we can carry on a lot. We play football and baseball and carry on our business because we've got an electrified world today.

But because it was evening and it was time to kind of just shut things down, they said, "Let's just put them in custody." Now, let me say a word about what being put in custody meant in the ancient world. They're put in jail, and they had holding rooms probably close by the temple. We know, again, from the story with Paul, that up in the Antonia Fortress, that Paul was held there. I doubt that they took Peter and John there, that would've turned them over to the Roman authorities. They probably had somewhere in the precincts of the temple area holding cells where they could keep the apostles in custody until the next day.

Understand something about a prison in the ancient world. A prison in the ancient world and the idea of a penal system, nowhere near what we have today. People were not sentenced to 20 years, 10 years, probation after 5, or something like that. If you were arrested, if you were convicted of something, and you were either released and it was a quicker trial than what we would be used to today, or if you were to be...and you were sentenced to condemnation, or you found yourself in custody and in jail, your case was going to be adjudicated. It was going to be tried pretty quickly. And if you were found guilty, judgment was going to be carried out pretty quickly. In other words, you were not going to be hanging around for 5 years with appeals, 10 years for appeals in the Roman world. If you were sentenced to death, right away, that's carried out.

And we'll see when we come again to Paul's arrest at the end of the Book of Acts, he's left in Rome in a house arrest and he stays there for some time. He's not been tried. When Paul was then arrested a second time, brought back to Rome, he was put into a different prison, today it's called the Mamertine Prison in Rome. And it was from there that he was taken to be very likely beheaded according to the traditions. So, the apostles being put in custody here would've been very rudimentary, crude custody. Maybe in chains, it doesn't say, but that could have been possible. Now, verse 4 goes on.

Acts 4:4 "However, many of those who heard the word, they'd heard their preaching, they believe." They were excited, they wanted to hear more. They probably continued talking amongst themselves. "And the number of the men came to be about 5,000."

So, it's quite a large grouping here who have responded, and you can see why the Sadducees, the temple guard all now were called in and aroused by what was taking place. So, it's a very large gathering that happens. Now, in verse 5.

Acts 4:5-6 “It came to pass, on the next day, that their rulers, elders, and scribes came together there, as well as Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander and as many as were of the family of the high priests were gathered together at Jerusalem."

So, the next day dawns, and we have a convening of a grouping of rulers, elders, and scribes. This would be what would be generally called then the Sanhedrin and what they know now. The best that I've read and determined as to where they were meeting would've not been here in Solomon's Porch, but down in this area, which is the southern area of the Temple Mount. There was another portico here, the map shows it as a royal portico. It would've been colonated. it was not as long as Solomon's Porch, but it was an open portico in there.

And archeologists and scholars think that at this southeast corner, there was an area where the Sanhedrin met, and it was kind of a circular room with benches, stone benches, and room for this small group to meet and conduct their business, and watchers and observers would've been, you know, piled up back in through there. And this would've been kind of high up over the whole area looking out over the southern end of the Temple Mount. And it's a grouping of people that are identified here, the high priest Annas is mentioned. We know of him from the gospels. He is the one along with Caiaphas who engineered the death of Christ. Annas was kind of the ringleader. He was the patriarch of a family and the power behind the power at this particular point. Caiaphas, who was mentioned here by name, we know was his son-in-law, his son-in-law.

And so, this structure of the high priests were passed and kept within the family. it was a family business, right? Thank Jewish mafia, if you will. And frankly, the way they conducted themselves was like a Jewish mafia of the day. They engineered Christ's death, and they're going to be responsible for the death of Stephen later in the book. And now they've arrested Peter and John, and any affront to their authority, they don't like. And so, this is kind of the council, the senate, the supreme court of the people at this particular time. The high priest, who in this case would be Caiaphas, will be the one presiding over this at this particular time. And so, it's a combination of other priests, former high priests, elders, teachers of the law, scribes, that's what the word scribes means, they were teachers of the law. And all of these are the ones who come together and they are the ruling family, and again, the power structure that was involved in putting Christ to death.

Now, in verse 6, there are two other names here, John and Alexander, and we don't seem to know who they are. No one seems to know who they are, no commentary that I have read on Acts has any indication of who these two might be, but we do know about Annas and Caiaphas who are referenced in other works as well as in the gospel there. So, this is the grouping that has John and Peter before them. Verse 7 says.

Acts 4:7 "When they had set them in the midst." So, they're convened in court, probably a semi-circular lecture hall-type situation, tiered seats. And John and Peter are standing in the midst of them, they've been brought in. And they ask, "By what power or what name have you done this?"

By this, they're referring to the healing of that lame man, and then the subsequent preaching that they do. So, they're called out of the lockup, and they are probably not given a decent breakfast and allowed to shower and shave in any way, and probably haven't spent a very restful night, I'm sure as well. So, they're brought in and they immediately have to be put before an intimidating group of people. Think about that. You know, even if, you know, any of us are ever called before into somebody's office, you get called to your supervisor's office, you get called to the principal's office at school or whatever, that's intimidating. You're called before the authorities and, you know, generally you might have a little bit of time to understand what it is and what that you're being called for, but I'm thinking here that Peter and John didn't have a lot of time to prepare, and they probably did some praying and talking amongst themselves through the night.

But what they then respond with indicates that they probably recalled something. This is how I imagine it. If you turn back over to Luke 21, hold your place here. And Luke 21, Jesus encouraged his disciples with something, telling them what to expect when they would deal with opposition and persecution, Luke 21. And verse 14, Jesus tells them, "Therefore settle it." He's talking here of a period of...it's within His Olivet prophecy. And He's talking about a time of trial and trouble and persecution upon the Church. Therefore, He says in verse 14.

Luke 21:14 "Settle it in your hearts not to meditate beforehand on what you will answer. For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all of your adversaries will not be able to contradict or resist."

So, here's a promise from Christ. "Look, I will be with you through the spirit, through the power of the Spirit, and I will give you a mouth, in other words, the ability to speak, reason, and to defend, and I will give you wisdom that no one will be able to resist or contradict." We're at that moment right here. I could well imagine Peter and John, in a sense, praying about that, talking about this in the hours leading up to being called before and sat in the midst of this group of people. And what we are going to see then is fearless defense given by Peter because in verse 8 it says.

Acts 4:8 "Peter filled with the Holy Spirit,"

And, you know, underline that, you know, whatever you're doing to mark your Bible and understand that, it is God's spirit working with Peter, he's filled with it. Remember, one of our purposes for the Book of Acts that we talked about at the beginning, and what we're looking through as we see is the work of the resurrected Christ in His Church, in His disciples as we go through the Book of Acts. And this is the Holy Spirit empowering them.

Acts 4:8-10 “...And they said to them, ‘Rulers of the people and elders of Israel.’” And so, they acknowledged their authority, they understood that they were subject to that. "If we this day are judged to a good deed done to a helpless man by what means he has been made well, let it be known to you all and to the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands before you whole."

They go over to the attack very quickly. This is their defense. And God is empowering them, giving them the words that it is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. And he says, "Whom you crucified." And he's looking at the very men who engineered it. This is boldness, this is fearlessness. This is not being diplomatic if you want to look at it that way. They're not diplomatic in speaking truth to power here. They push all the hot buttons. You killed this man by whom this man is raised in His name. God raised Him from the dead. God did that. The Father raised Christ from the dead, and it's by His name that we are saved, he says as he goes on. In verse 12, what he says is…

Acts 4:12 "Nor is there salvation in any other. For there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."

This is pretty powerful. And of course, Acts 4:12 here is a very key scripture that there is no other name under heaven, that of Jesus Christ, given among men by which we must be saved. That's why we baptize in His name. And we call upon His name in faith for repentance and faith. And when we're baptized, we are baptized in that name. There is no other name under heaven. And so, this is his opening defense that it comes down to at the end of verse 12. And as I say, he's punched all the proper buttons to get them agitated. Nothing has been watered down. And he is… I skipped over verse 11, let me read verse 11. Peter's quoting from Psalm 118:22 here at verse 11.

Acts 4:11 He said, speaking of Christ, "This is the stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone."

And he's applying that verse, Psalm 118:22 to Christ, the stone rejected by the builders having become the chief cornerstone. Now, scholars will debate, is this, let's say, a cornerstone that is put into the foundation of a large building that anchors it there, or is it, let's say, what is called a keystone? If you understand certain principles of architecture, and you see this a lot in the ancient world, you still see it today, but where an arch might be built like this right at this particular point in order to hold together the two sides and the pressures there, is put what is called a keystone, a keystone. And engineering-wise, that particular keystone, and you will see this in buildings, holds that structure together.

Now, a cornerstone would be in the foundation of a building, and it would be a very, you know, large cornerstone that ties together the corner and the walls that go out from it. You can see pictures of the corners of the Temple Mount area today. And there are foundational cornerstones there that are quite huge, large, that have been exposed through the archeology through the recent years that held up this entire Temple Mount platform on which the temple building was built and all the other buildings around there. I could have brought some pictures to show you that, but graphically, this is quite a picture that Peter is painting here from Psalm 118. But he said, "You've rejected that."

And so, your building, he's saying, is crumbling. There's no support, no structure for you. This is a very serious charge that he's making. You've rejected Christ, put Him to death. God's raised Him from the dead. We're preaching in His name, healing in His name, and you're bringing us and charging us and examining us as a result of that. Your structure, he's saying, is going to crumble, and it did. But the structure built by the spiritual building of the Church is intact because Christ is at the head of the Church. He is either the keystone, the cornerstone, you know, it is His body. He is the head of that body and it is being built.

Now, I want to make another point about the direct boldness that he's saying here. As I said, this is not a polite introduction. This is not ecumenical. This is not trying to be inclusive. This is not trying to be all things to all men. He's basically laid out, you're responsible for His death. You killed Him, God raised Him. You're bringing us here and we're having to answer, you know, in His name, we're doing our work there. And then he says, "There's no other name under heaven among men by which salvation comes, and it's Christ." It's almost a drop-the-mic moment and walk away. What else is there to say?

In reading this, this morning, I was doing some reading yesterday in preparation for some writing I've got to be doing about England, the crown and the throne, and queen Elizabeth who died here just a few weeks ago, but I've referenced her funeral before. And I would hope that you would go out and, you know, you would watch...if you haven't seen the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II at Westminster Abbey, it's well worth the time. She designed it herself as people of that stature do, a king, or even presidents in the United States. They read scripture that was pretty strong. They read from John 11 where Christ says, "If you believe in me, you shall be saved." And they read from John 14 that "He is the way and the truth." Christ is the way and the truth. And in that audience were Muslims, atheists, agnostics, unbelievers of all different stripes and sorts, and people who didn't care, and she knew they would be there, you have to kind of get into your thinking when she designed what would be read from the Bible at her funeral. And she gave them a pretty powerful witness. And I remember as I was watching, I didn't watch it live, I watched the replay of it later that day, and it was stunning. It was not an ecumenical modern-type religious service meant to appeal to all faiths, and it's an object lesson for us all to think about today. Well, Peter's was not like that at all. Let's go to verse 13.

Acts 4:13 "When they, the Sanhedrin, saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled and they realized that they had been with Jesus."

Now, this is kind of a commentary on Peter and John, the other disciples, and those 120 or so that were part of the original founding of the Church on Pentecost that survived everything from Christ's arrest and death and the weeks after that. And as they look at Peter and John, they said, "These are..." They perceived they were uneducated and untrained. Now, this does not mean that they were illiterate and ignorant, you know, hicks from Galilee. That's not what it means. It just means that they were not schooled in the rabbinical school and processes of the day. They hadn't gone to the Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford of the day, but Peter and John were literate and they were educated. They knew the Torah, or the Old Testament, all of that because there was a high degree of literacy within the Jewish community in the first-century. All of this is documented by historians and modern archeology.

And so, Peter is going to later write two epistles in Greek. And so, he had a working knowledge of that as well as Hebrew, probably Aramaic as well at the time. But he was a fisherman and he was not a scholar and a teacher. But among the Jewish community, there were schools and there were expectations for everyone, even the smallest village of Galilee. All of this is a matter of record. And so, understand that, in a sense, Peter and John had an advantage by not having gone through the rabbinical schools, let's say the theological or divinity schools of the day, the equivalent of that, because they were not then tainted by the philosophical ideological approach of the Sadducees who didn't believe in a resurrection or a coming Messiah, or the Pharisees who had a skewed view of the law. And Christ will have a lot to say about that, and we will touch on that when we come to Chapter 15 of Acts.

And so, they were not schooled all of this, and the slants that they were putting on scripture and truth. Understand something, Judaism in the first-century was not the religion of Moses, it was not what God gave to Moses. Judaism then, and certainly Judaism today, was and is built on layers and layers of human tradition and interpretation and application of the law, the Word, the Old Testament. And this is what, in Matthew 23, Jesus really gives a scathing rebuke of the scribes and Pharisees about, how they put yolks and burdens upon people. And we'll see this in the dispute about and the discussion about circumcision that the Church had to settle in Acts 15. So, Peter and John had an advantage.

I look at it as an advantage that I haven't gone through the divinity schools that are available out there. They wouldn't let me in anyway because I don't believe in the Trinity. And I mentioned that if you go into it, apply to a divinity school of any major denomination, their code is that, do you believe in the Trinity? Check this box. And I couldn't get in, you couldn't get in, unless you said otherwise, I guess, or whatever, or talked your way in. But, you know, we can study their books, we can study the commentaries, and should to learn a lot, but not to learn about, you know, becoming the Sunday keeper, you know, doing away with the law or anything else, but there is information there.

But Peter and John, coming at it from the background that they had, working men, salt of the earth, honest people, people of the land, they are demonstrating something here that is really like an Amos. Back in...I don't know, have you've gone through...you have gone through Amos. Remember Amos said, "Look, I'm a sheep herder. I wasn't raised in a king's house," and yet he stood before the king and gave him what for in the name of God. And he had the advantage of having not been trained or brought up in the elite structure of his day. That doesn't limit God from using anyone. When Paul writes later in 1 Corinthians 1 about, you know, the fact that our calling is not, you know, from the mighty and the powerful, the noble, he says, "Not many of those are called, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise. God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things that are mighty." That's who we are.

So, what Peter and John are doing here are demonstrating a great deal of conviction, commitment, and courage. What Don Ward, one of our elder statesmen in the church, calls his three Cs of commitment, conviction, and courage. We even used that in a GCE theme a few years ago, commitment, conviction, and courage. That's what they're doing. They're convicted of Christ's resurrection, and by the spirit, they're certainly committed to what they believe, and they have the courage to stand up in front of this august group of people, a very intimidating group of people, and speak, as I said, truth to power. And they do it, and they do it convincingly at this point.

Acts 4:14 Goes on to say, "Seeing a man who had been healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it."

Too many witnesses, too many knew that this was a legitimate situation. This was not some fake miracle of somebody who had faked some psychosomatic-type condition for any period of time, and then suddenly was healed or felt that they were cured or whatever it might be. This was something they couldn't say anything against.

Acts 4:15-16 Says, "When they had commanded them to go outside of the council, they conferred among themselves saying, ‘What should we do with these men? For indeed a notable miracle has been done through them, is evident to all who dwell in Jerusalem and we cannot deny it.’”

They couldn't deny it, but they were not going to let it change their heart. Their heart was pretty hard. They didn't want this, as is said in verse 17.

Acts 4:17 "But so that it spreads no further among the people, let us severely threaten them that from now on they speak to no man in this name."

So, this is their judgment, arrived at in secret because it says that they put them out. Verse 15, they commanded them, Peter and John, to go outside out of the council, and so they had an executive session. And they said, "Let's command that they speak no more in this man's name." Now, at this point, the logical question arises, how did Luke know what happened in a private session when he wasn't there, Peter and John were not there? Think about that. How did this get out?

Well, we're not told, but we could guess because there was probably a man there by the name of Gamaliel, who we're going to be introduced to a little bit later, who is a wise man and a member of this Sanhedrin. And he later is going to utter a favorable comment about the Church that gets him off the hook again. Could be that Gamaliel told one of his students, whose name was Saul, what had happened. This is who is going to be the Apostle Paul. And we know that Saul had gone to the rabbinical school or the philosophical Pharisaical school of Gamaliel, whom we know from history as well as the scripture, was a very highly esteemed teacher at this period in Jerusalem. And Gamaliel would've been a member of the Sanhedrin, and were he there that day, it could be that he tells Paul. Paul tells Luke as they become companions later on. That's one possibility as to how this information from an executive session gets out so that Luke can record it. So, verse 18 then goes on.

Acts 4:18-20 “They called them and commanded them not to speak at all, nor to teach in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said to them, ‘Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge, for we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.’”

And this is kind of...it's not an echo because they're saying it later, but in Acts 5:29, later on, they're going to basically say the same thing, we have to obey God, not man, when they're brought again. And that's when we'll see what Gamaliel has to say. But they threaten them. They say, "Don't speak anymore in this name or teach in the name of Jesus." And basically they say, "We cannot but speak the things we have seen and heard."

Acts 4:21-23 Says, “That they further threatened them.” It doesn't record what that threat was. “Then they were released finding no way of punishing them because of the people, since they all glorified God for what had been done, for the man was 40 years old on whom this miracle of healing had been performed. And being let go, they went to their own companions and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them.”

So, they're released with a threat, and this sets up any future action that they could take legally. And they will arrest them again, but they still take no action at that time. We'll read though where they will take plenty of action later on, but that's another part of the story.

So, we'll end here at verse 23 because I want to take the full time to be able to go into the report to the Church and what happens here in the next few verses. It's pretty powerful, and we'll talk about that next time, next class. But this is the first effort of the power structure of the Jews to shut down what is being done in the Church, and as we know from the story, it just doesn't happen. So, with that, we're done. How's that for timing?

Welcome back to the Book of Acts. We are going to finish up Chapter 9 today. We left our intrepid hero, the Apostle Paul in the city of Tarsis, where everything got too hot for him in Damascus and then in Jerusalem and so they sent him off to Tarsis. We'll pick him up a little bit later in the story. But in Chapter 9 verse 32, the scene shifts to the Apostle Peter. And we have a few verses to cover as the Apostle Peter. If you see by the map that is on the screen is found down here toward the coast from Jerusalem. He's going toward the sea, and he's got to stop in Lydda. And then he is got to stop in Joppa where he will stay for a period of time before he's going to go up to Caesarea for what is one of the very momentous moments in the story of the church, which we'll cover in Chapter 10. So, let's pick it up in verse 32. We have his passage through the parts of the country.

Acts 9:32 "That he also came down to the saints who dwelt in Lydda."

This is where, again, Luke just inserts here that there are saints, members we would look at them in the city of Lydda, a small village. How did this group come to be? Again, Luke doesn't tell us every detail about the startup of all the churches, although we're going to find one soon, the church at Antioch, how that begins. But Lydda's got a group of saints, and it seems like Peter is out on a visiting tour. Again, there's no explanation given as to why Peter decides to go down toward this part of the country except to make it a visit of some of the churches. And, were there news of needs, people sick, or just checking in? I don't know. Part of the role of a shepherd, a pastor at his church is to get out and visit people, and sometimes to anoint, sometimes to counsel, sometimes just to sit and have a cup of coffee.

And one of my most favorite times in the ministry was to do what... I used to employ a cowboy term, you go out and you ride fence. You go out and you just drive to where your people are living and you visit with them, and you don't have to have a reason necessarily. There's not a crisis. You're just visiting with them, and you sit for a while. You have a cup of coffee, a cup of tea, whatever it might be, and maybe a meal and just talk for a while on the front porch, on the back patio, wherever it might be. Those were some of the most enjoyable times that I had in the field ministry. And I'd like to think of this particular passage as Peter kind of going out and checking up on the churches. And so he stops in Lydda here.

Acts 9:33 "He found a certain man named Aeneas, who had been bedridden eight years and was paralyzed."

That's the way it's put here, he found. Tells us that he maybe did not know about this man or did he hear about him, and maybe this was the reason for the visit. Let's just take it as it comes, but here is a disciple who is quite ill.

Acts 9:34 "And Peter said to him, ‘Aeneas, Jesus the Christ heals you. Arise and make your bed. And he rose immediately.’”

And again, very similar to the lame man that was at the temple when Peter and John in Chapter 3 had gone into the temple at that time and Peter had raised him back to life, a lame man as well. And so here is perhaps a little different type of malady that Aeneas has, but Peter performs this act of healing.

Acts 9:35 "And so all who dwelt at Lydda and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord."

Again, one of the reasons for the miracles we read about in the Book of Acts and as well as in the gospels, was to draw attention to the gospel or to Christ Himself and His power as the Son of God. But this has the benefit of turning many people to God, and to the worship of the Lord, the risen Christ. And so, Peter now moves on.

Acts 9:36-38 It says, "At Joppa," which puts him down on the coast. Again you look at the map here, he's down now on the Mediterranean coast at Joppa. There's still a settlement there, a town, in that locale. "And there was a certain disciple named Tabitha, which is translated Dorcas. This woman was full of good works and charitable deeds which she did. But it happened in those days that she became sick and died," perhaps a brief short illness that resulted in her death. "And when they had washed her, they laid her in an upper room. And since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples heard Peter was there, and they sent two men to him imploring him not to delay in coming to them."

So, they had heard he was there, word had filtered through as again, people were going back and forth. So, they sent to Lydda for Peter to come down. Now, it says about this woman here that she was full of good works and charitable deeds which she did. One thing about Luke that we've I think already commented on is Luke tends to focus on women a great deal in his gospel and in the Book of Acts. We learn about a lot of different women in the church and in the story of the church in those two books. And also Luke will focus on the marginalized of society. That's why you will find the parable of the Good Samaritan in the Gospel of Luke. You know, as we've discussed earlier, the Samaritans were marginalized at least with the Jews. They had their own community up to the north, but they were not welcome, let's say, in Jerusalem and at the tables of the Jews. There was a longstanding animosity between them, but it's on that story that Luke focuses and puts in his story of God.

So, here is another woman, Tabitha, who is known for her good works and charitable deeds which she did. So, she was kind of a standout among the women in the church, if you will. And so they laid her out. She died. They sent for Peter and allow enough time for him to come down. So, in this case, they didn't put her in the grave right away. There's no explanation given for that. Maybe it was just because they wanted to take the time to mourn. Maybe it was so sudden, so stunning to the disciples here that this woman who had been perhaps, you know, so vibrant and a part of the church, now all of a sudden, after likely a brief illness, she's gone. And that put a shock into the congregation. So, perhaps they were not ready to, in a sense, part with her. Were they looking for something beyond that? They sent for Peter to come down. He did go. In verse 39.

Acts 9:39 "When he came, they brought him to the upper room. And all the widows stood by him weeping, showing the tunics and the garments which Dorcas had made while she was with them."

So, she was known for her handy crafts, for her ability to create clothing, a basic necessity of life, which obviously would've been distributed to people who needed that. She was that type of woman. I don't know how you would find your congregations, those of you listening online, students here in the room from which you come, but I would think that as you look around at the individuals in your congregation, you would have certain individuals like a Tabitha, a Dorcas who stands out, who quietly goes about taking care of people's needs and you don't hear about them.

They're not in the announcements every week, but they know who needs something, maybe a meal when somebody's sick, maybe a coat for winter, maybe a little extra money here or there, and they take care of it, or see that it gets taken care of. Those are the people that make the congregation work and also provide that glue that just causes things to stick together. It's not always a woman doing that as well. Many, many men perform those unseen, sometimes unknown roles.

I would marvel through my years, again in the ministry that at times I would find out what was being done for so and so in the congregation that I didn't have to tell them to do it, that people just began to do themselves. And I always thought, "Man, that's great." Those were the greatest situations because that's what you want, people to take initiative. And you want to see people taking care of one another, and providing for each other's needs within everybody's abilities. Such was Tabitha and Dorcas here, and that's why they stood by weeping. And perhaps it's what they were hoping for as they called for Peter to come and see them.

Acts 9:40-42 "Peter put them all out, knelt down, and prayed." This was his response. "And turning to the body he said, 'Tabitha, arise.' And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter, she sat up." Another miracle. A miracle here of an individual being brought back to life. "He gave her his hand, lifted her up; and when he had called the saints and widows, he presented her alive." And so he either called them in or he brought her out to where they were. "And it became known throughout all Joppa." Again, the miracle drew attention to God, not to Peter. "They believed on the Lord," it tells us at the end of verse 42.

Any good deed, any healing that would take place amongst people when there would be sickness in our midst, always give credit to God, not the minister, not the individual. Give credit to God. This was meant to do that.

Acts 9:43 "So it was that he stayed many days in Joppa with Simon, a tanner."

And so he's down on a sea coast, and he just decides to stay here and remain here for a while. He finds lodging with a man named Simon, a tanner. So, really the story now just blends into Chapter 10. It really doesn't... There's no ending at only kind of a contrived chapter demarcation here at this point. But Peter's now about to be involved in a significant step of, call it evangelism, call it an opening of the door to the Gentiles as he is going to go up to be called up to Caesarea, and he's going to encounter there an individual, and there's going to be quite a scene, quite an event that finalizes and puts, in a sense, the final stamp on things.

So, just before we go to that, I just want to comment, you know, that Luke is inspired by God here at the end of Chapter 9 to give us just a few verses of two different events that Peter does as he is heading out, you know, writing fence. Did he intend to go up to Caesarea? Probably not. Was he going to kind of backtrack through Lydda, maybe go back up to Jerusalem, or stop along the way? I don't know. He seems to come to a terminus of where his intent was in what he had set out here. But in the two stops that he's had, his mind, and his ministries is drawn to the power of God working in the church, the power of the risen Christ working through the disciples, and through here he as an apostle.

And I think that we should look at that as a preparatory for what is going to happen as he gets into Chapter 10 because God is going to lead him into a situation that he must understand is of God. And he could not have designed it, Peter and James and John and the apostles in Jerusalem, guess what? They did not have a strategic plan for what was going to take place. They hadn't written all this up in advance. They didn't chart it all out with bullet points and flow items and everything else. It wasn't in their strategic plan, but it's in God's strategic plan, as all things ultimately worthwhile are.

But he's prepared by being drawn to the, again, two dramatic events in the lives of simple members, simple disciples, unknown names of people other than Aeneas and Tabitha. The rest of them are encouraged by what happens, and they are the glue of the church, and what is happening is the gospel is spread. So, his attention now is going to be turned to someone quite different, a different type of an individual. And again, this is the variety of what we see. So, let's go ahead and turn over to Chapter 10, and let's begin to look at this. There's a lot to deal with here in Chapter 10 as we move into this remarkable scene. Luke opens it this way in verse 1.

Acts 10:1-3 "There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian Regiment, a devout man and one who feared God with all of his household, who gave alms generously to the people and prayed to God always. And about the ninth hour, he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God coming in and saying to him, 'Cornelius.'"

So, we've moved up the coast of Caesarea. Just a few quick pictures to give you kind of a setting for this. I showed this to you last time, but Caesarea again, remember, it is Caesarea Maritima, the technical full name. Caesarea, you should recognize commemorates Caesar and Maritima by the sea. So, it's Caesarea by the sea, but it's a city essentially built by Herod the Great. You have a handout that I've already given to you here that shows you the family tree of the Herodian family. And you will need to keep that because it's important that you know the different Herods in the gospels and in the Book of Acts especially. There are different ones. And this particular family tree, I'll just hold it up here. We'll have that on the website or in the web, I believe, for those online. Shows the tree of the Herodian family as it pertains to Scripture. And that's what we'll focus on, and that's what you need to know because there's a lot of information here.

But Herod built this Caesarea. And as I said last time, it was a seaport. And you can see, he built out this artificial harbor. He enclosed it to where boats could come in and safely anchor. This jetty that comes out is man-made. You see the excavations that have been done there that are quite extent. Interestingly, this is a Crusader castle that is there in Caesarea. But the Romans knew how to pour concrete underwater in their day. And you can still see that in Caesarea today. They used that to build up the port.

I was reading an article about that particular process recently and how that works, but it's still there. And it was quite a feat. As he built the city, this became the seat of not only Herod the Great but then all the successive Roman governors. And we'll find this will be the scene for the Apostle Paul's imprisonment later on. So, we're going to come back to Caesarea.

Just one thing that I will note. We don't have it up on the map up here, but this was a seaport. And a port serves needs for transportation. Ships come and go, and for commerce. And really somebody like Herod the Great and the Romans, they didn't build up a huge city on the seaside and a port like this without wanting to make money, which is what this was all about. And Herod the Great became quite wealthy through this as it enabled him to control and have duties on and be involved with the transport of spices, perfumes, and other goods that were a part of the caravan route, going back and forth east, west in the Mediterranean world at that time.

If you remember, I told you when we were studying Daniel 11 and the back-and-forth battles between the King of the North, the Seleucid, and the King of the South, the Ptolemies in Egypt. A lot of those battles of Daniel 11 deal with trying to control the trade routes that went through that part of the world. It's all about money, then and now. The adage "Follow the money" helps to understand a lot. And when it comes to, in a sense, geography and why the city is here, follow the money. It enabled Herod the Great to build up a large amount of money for which he built a lot himself. He had multiple palaces all over the countryside. And don't forget, he refurbished and built out the temple in Jerusalem, that second temple that we referred to. He expanded the temple mount, refurbished the temple, made it even grander. That took a lot of money, the gold, the silver, and everything that was there, the labor to do all of that, and his palaces.

And Caesarea Maritima was a part of the cash flow for Herod the Great at that time within the greater Mediterranean world. And so that's why it's here, and it becomes the... At this time now, as we were dealing with here in the fourth decade of the 1st century AD, we find now that there is a centurion here named Cornelius, from what was called the Italian Regiment. What's this all about? Well, keep in mind the city is the headquarters for the Roman governor, and Roman governor had to have troops with him. And the Roman soldiers and parts of the legion at least had to have a presence here for this scene to be in front of us at this time.

So, just an aside. Look at this as kind of a sidebar here for a moment. I didn't put it on my slides, but let's do it right here. We are introduced to a member of the Roman army, and the Roman army basically they were called the legions, right? Now, there were many different legions or armies, at least 15. I know there's the 15th Legion and throughout the history of the Roman Empire, the Roman legions were basically responsible for creating the empire. When you see the movies about Rome, they inevitably will have scenes about the legions. Probably one of the better-known ones that was done recently was that of "Gladiator." Again, put that on your movie list if you haven't seen. Everybody's seen it. Anybody here not seen "Gladiator?" Okay. They creep up with their hands. You need to see "Gladiator." But opening scene, it's the legions up in Germany fighting the Germanic tribes. But my point is it's the legions that essentially went out and they built the empire for, first, the republic, and then later the Caesars.

At this time, the legions are under the direct control of the Caesar. He is the commander-in-chief, and they literally in so many ways, are responsible for all that was Rome. They conquered the territories. They enforced Roman order, they put down uprisings, and they, in some cases, even dealt with trade. Now, why is it important to know a little bit about the Roman army? Because they are found throughout the New Testament. Think about it. John the Baptist is preaching and baptizing, and some soldiers come to him, and he tells them how to conduct themselves. He doesn't seem to baptize them, but some feel that those could very well have been Roman soldiers, not just Jewish soldiers.

When you see the scene in Matthew 8, Christ heals a centurion's servant. It's not likely the same centurion as Cornelius here, but that was in Capernaum on the north shore of Galilee. Why was a Roman centurion in Capernaum? Probably to make sure that the taxes were collected. Remember, Matthew is a tax collector. He's in Capernaum. And if you've seen "The Chosen," you'll see that he enter... In the movie, "The Chosen," my wife and I were watching that recently, and the scenes with Matthew. He answers directly to a Roman soldier. They were there to make sure the money was collected. And so Christ interacted with a centurion. And, of course, the Roman soldiers arrested Christ and crucified Him. It was a Roman soldier that put the spear through Christ. 

And here in Acts, we see now soldiers, and we're going to see them arrest Paul and accompany him to Rome. So, we need to know a little bit about the Roman army and the Roman legions as we go about this. So, we need to put up a Roman centurion right there. Roman legion was the largest group, several thousand. We'll get into all the numbers here. But there was a subdivision called a cohort, and then under a cohort was even a smaller group called a century. Originally, the century was a unit of 100 men, hence the name century, for 100. In later years, this probably went down to about 80-plus they think. So, the sizes of the legions were diminished through the years. But over a century was a centurion. And that's where we come in with Cornelius here, right?

So, a centurion was responsible for 80 to 100 men under his charge, right? And there were several centuries within a cohort, and then over there was kind of a primed overall centurion over all the other centuries. So, it was a very well-organized army, and here is Cornelius, who is a centurion. Now, we're told that he's from the Italian Regiment. Commentators feel that that was a regiment probably originating either near Rome, Southern Italy, and a contingent of them find themselves here doing duty in Caesarea at this time. Cornelius is over them.

Just a little bit more something about a centurion. And a lot of it will apply to that of a Roman soldier, the rank and file, but typically a Roman soldier and a centurion would be engaged for up to 20 to 25 years of service in Rome. Now, keep in mind that this would've been a pretty good job for a lot of Roman men to do. And if they lived and if they survived all these years and all these campaigns and wars and battles, after 20, 25 years of service, they were discharged. If they were still alive, they would be given sometimes money, but more lucratively, they would be given a plot of land. And a lot of retired Roman soldiers were given land in what is today's Spain, and they wind up there. That's why in the movie "Gladiator," the Russell Crowe character, his land is in Spain. But over a period of time, you know, as Rome expanded, parts of their expansion was also to provide more land for people and also for money for the Senate, and also land for these retiring soldiers that they had to kind of pay off at that time.

When we come to Antioch in Pisidia, later in the story here in Acts, which is a city in Asia Minor, that city was largely made up of retired Roman legionaries furloughed there by Caesar Augustus, the big guy who founded the Empire. And he settled a lot of them in Antioch of Pisidia, other places as well. So, this is what would happen.

Now, let's go to verse 2 here, and let's look at the character of this man, which is unusual. Keep in mind, he's a Gentile, he's a Roman. The Romans were hated among the Jews, and the church is having a... They're seeing now that the gospel and converts are going to be involving people that were not like them, okay? Think about your group. What's your group? We like people who are like us, right? Look like us, think like us. Groups get like that. Whatever the group might be. You fill in the blank. Every group of people, ethnically, religiously, racially. People come together because everybody has common interests, common background, common race, common religion. And we like people who are like us, right? It's just human nature.

The church is a group of called-out ones now, very specially called, but they have, as we've talked of earlier, they've been holed up in Jerusalem until the martyrdom of Stephen, then Christ is spreading them out. And the Romans now, they've gone to Samaria. Phillip went to Samaria, baptized people. Phillip then baptized the Ethiopian Eunuch. That was a difference there. Now, Peter is coming in contact with a Roman, a Gentile from Italy. It doesn't get any more Gentile than that in the story.

And we find that he is a devout man who feared God with all of his household. That term, "feared God," is a term that we call in Scripture a God fear. I'm not going to give you the Greek term here today. We'll come back to it maybe in Chapter 13. But I want you to understand this term as it is applied here. It is a Greek word here. And it means one who fears God and is applied to Gentiles by the Jews who attached themselves to the synagogue and to all things Jewish or Judaic and seek to worship the God of Abraham. And this became a class of people.

You will find... Well, I did put this in here. This is a picture of a Roman officer. Pause and comment on this for a moment. And this is a centurion. This is a reenactment from the city of Jerash, which is in modern Jordan. I didn't take this picture, but I've been to Jerash and I saw this reenactment on the tour that we took. And they had a group of Roman soldiers, probably 40 or 50 in this reenactment, and they were all dressed up in Roman garb and they came out in this stadium, and they did certain maneuvers. They marched, they turned, they did their turtle shell, which is interesting. The Roman soldiers had a huge shield that covered most of their body, kind of curved, and as part of their defense, they obviously used it individually, but when a group of them would all band together and they would either cover themselves with their shields or wrap it around them, they were kind of invincible.

They would kind of get, like, a turtle shell with these shields over them, and then they would move against a body of the enemy or against the wall of a city, and they would be able to repel the spears and the arrows and whatever might be thrown down and make an advance upon the enemy like that. So, they were very disciplined. They showed us how that was, done and I remember seeing some of the soldiers dressed up in this bright, orange garb. So, that's the dress of a centurion, how he would've looked in the first century.

This is a mosaic in a synagogue in the ancient city of Sardis. Do you know where Sardis is? It's one of the seven churches. Hopefully, we'll see this. We'll be able to walk out into that synagogue this time. I was there two years ago, and they were working on it. We couldn't walk on the mosaics. But there's a mosaic, and this mosaic basically says "Godfearer." The word there, “theosebes” is in the middle. Theo for God, sebes, fearer, a Godfearrer. And it's right in here. That's the “theosebes” right there. And this is in a Jewish synagogue. Godfearers, Gentiles came into the synagogue. And this was a classification of people.

And I'm going to show you another reference. This is the same engraved theosebes or Godfearer. This is from a stadium in the city of Miletus. I actually saw that last year when I was in Turkey. But that's from Miletus. Now, we'll know Miletus when we get to Chapter 20. Paul goes to Miletus and he calls the elders from Ephesus down for a meeting with them. They have a ministerial meeting. We'll read about that. But this is a seat in a huge Roman amphitheater, and it's in a section reserved for the Godfearers. They were a classification of people. And if they were worshiping the God of Abraham, they were...do we call it segregated to a section of the theater? But they had their name on the seats right there. And this is one that survives.

And so this grouping of people called those who fear God we're introduced to them with Cornelius. Paul's going to address them in Chapter 13. So, it's important to understand what is being said here as this takes place. So, Cornelius is a devout man. He fears God. He is associated with the Jews. He gives alms generously to the people and praise to God always. If you look over in verse 22, just jump ahead in the story, again, further description about Cornelius.

Acts 19:22 It says, "Cornelius the centurion, a just man, who fears God, "theosebes," and has a good reputation among all the nation of the Jews."

Alright? So, that gives a little bit more specificity to what this man was. He was not a typical Roman centurion who was learning it over the locals, in this case, the Jews. The Jews would've been coming and going in Caesarea. They would've been merchants and providers, and they would've had their role within the community of Caesarea and would've been interacting with the Roman government, with the members of the army there. They would've had a synagogue. And Cornelius becomes a believer. It doesn't say that he's circumcised but just says that he's a believer and he has a good reputation with his household.

Now, some commentators think that what's going to be meeting Peter when Peter comes into the scene here a little bit later is upwards of 50 people in what would've been a typical household. That's kind of an extrapolation, speculation in terms of the numbers, but his household would've been, you know, more than a handful of people that he would've been responsible for. So, his example was spilling over to them, and was it coercion? This is what happened in the 1st century in the Roman world, and we'll see that as people are baptized, they and their household, it says, and, you know, whether it was servants or family members, just like today, you know, families will come into the church together, but because a lot of families had servants in the...just go ahead and call it what it is. They were slaves. In the 1st century, they were part of it as well. And that could be what is being discussed here with his household. But he's a devout man.

And again, he's not your typical Roman centurion. You see the movies and the depictions of the Roman soldiers, they were a pretty rough lot as soldiers typically are, regardless of the army of whatever nation. But this man stands out, and he is one that got his eye on. And so he is at the ninth hour of prayer, which is what time of the day? Yeah, 3:00 in the afternoon. He has a vision of an angel of God coming and saying, "Cornelius."

Acts 10:4 “And when he observed him, he was afraid, and he said, 'What is it, Lord?' So, he said, 'Your prayers and alms have come up for a memorial before God.'"

God has heard his prayers. God hears the prayers of a Gentile, Godfearer. Again, you get what God is teaching and leading Peter, and by extension the church to finally grasp the church is not about you, Jews, children of Judah. It's not just about descendants from Abraham. It is about all people, all nations, all ethnicities. That's what the church is about. And God has heard this man. Now, keep in mind what we started with, the sermon that Stephen gave back in Chapter 8.

And the point of his sermon as we brought out at that time was that Stephen was saying that, "Look, God called Abraham, our father, in a Gentile land outside of the Promised Land. Moses was in Egypt. Joseph was in Egypt. And so, it's not the land, just the land, and it's more than just the covenant, people, as the message now goes out and is spread." And so Cornelius is heard of God.

Acts 10:4-6 "So, he said, 'Your prayers and your alms have come up for a memorial before God. Now, send men to Joppa,'" down the coast. "'Send for Simon whose surname is Peter. He's lodging with Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the sea. He will tell you what you must do.'"

One point I forgot to link with, at the end of Chapter 9, Simon, the tanner, tells us what his occupation was, right? We all know what a tanner did. He dealt with hides. He tanned animal hides. And have you ever done...? Anybody been around tanning or worked around that? It's kind of nasty work, isn't it? Yeah, a little bit. Most people don't do it. We just go out and buy a leather jacket. We don't make our own or chew our leather or anything like that today. You didn't chew leather, did you do? No. Good. But working with animal hides, it's a very stinky business. There's a lot of chemicals involved. And Simon, the tanner, lives by the sea. He had access to the waters there. He probably had fresh water but, you know, he would flush out the contaminated water from the tanning process into the sea is why he put his house, and his shop would've been right there with him, right there by the sea.

But here's another thing to understand. Peter is staying with Simon, the tanner. Now, if you remember your studies from the Old Testament, you touch a dead animal, what are you? You're unclean. No self-respecting Jew would've been spending a night in a bnb that was a tannery, right? They wouldn't have looked that up on Vrbo. That wouldn't have worked for them. They would've bypassed that one. But Peter, at this point, actually he's already beginning to take a step out. He's staying with a tanner, and he's not worried about being unclean by being near these dead animal hides. So, is that telling us something about Peter's mindset at this time? Possibly. But that's where Simon, the tanner, is.

Just an aside, I'll tell you a little story. A few years ago, Scott Ashley and Steve Myers and I did a tour of Italy, a study tour. And this was the footsteps of Paul in Southern Italy. And when we were in Rome, they took us to a place that you wouldn't normally go on the normal tourist beat in Rome. They took us into an underground excavation site in the old Jewish quarter of Ancient Rome. And I remember we went down a lot of steps, and they had lights on down there, but there was an excavation down in there. The tour guide, the teacher that we were with, was showing this to us, and his speculation was that we were in the neighborhood within what he called a couple of hundred yards, perhaps, of where the Apostle Paul could possibly have been imprisoned when we see him at the end of the Book of Acts and he comes to Rome where he's imprisoned. Why? Because in their excavations, the archeologist found traces of chemicals from the process of tanning hides.

What was Paul's occupation? Do you know that? Anybody know? He was a tent-maker. That meant that that wasn't just working with boy scout canvas. That was working with animal hides to make tents, sails, and other things. That was his occupation. He was a card-carrying union member of the tent-making guild. It kind of makes sense that when Paul comes to Rome, because a Roman prisoner had to pay their own expenses, it wasn't a gift from Rome to be a prisoner of them, that he went to a neighborhood where he was, you know, familiar with a Jewish neighborhood and perhaps near where tanning went on and maybe he even could have done that or would've done some of that in the time because he was in prison for a period of time.

So, this is the speculative trail that they think, and they were showing us this. Now, was he there? I don't know. But it was an interesting little morning that we spent in this area there. So, you know, you can build these things out as you tour these sites in Turkey, Israel, Italy, and speculate a little bit, and you might be close to something, and then you might not be. So, I'm not saying that what I saw was the actual place, but it was quite interesting. So, Peter now is having something... Cornelius is being directed.

Acts 10:7-8 "When the angel who spoke to him had departed," verse 7, "And Cornelius called two of his household servants and a devout soldier from among those who waited on him continually. And when he explained all these things to them, he sent them to Joppa."

So, he sends them to go down to Joppa. This is what Joppa looks like and its harbor. And this is actually a scene from a house, a traditional house of Simon, the tanner, in what was Joppa. This is a photo taken back actually between 1900 and 1920, and it's been colorized, as you can tell, but I think the house is still there. I've seen some recent pictures of it, but it's a traditional site, and it's a rooftop that Peter could have been on. Wouldn't be the original house, maybe near the site, but it's at least the site of Joppa. So, these three are heading down. Verse 9 then begins to tell us about Peter.

Acts 10:9-10 "The next day, as they went on their journey, they drew near the city. Peter went up on the housetop to pray about the sixth hour," so about midday, noon. "He became very hungry.”

He wanted to eat, right? Was he doing intermittent fasting, and it was time to eat? We don't know, right? But he had been at least fasting since sunup, probably, and he was hungry.

Acts 10:10-12 "But while they made ready, he fell into a trance, and he saw heaven opened and an object like a great sheet bound at the four corners, descending to him and let down to the earth." This is the vision that he receives. "In it were all kinds of four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts,"

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my. What would they have been in there? Cougars, mountain lions, wild beasts, “creeping things,” snakes, lizards, frogs. Anybody ever ate frog here? This group wouldn't, but I had a chance to eat frog when I was a kid, but I wisely decided not to. Not that I didn't know it was unclean, but the idea of eating a reptile just never appealed to me. But some people, they say it tastes like chicken, fried chicken. I think anything that you might roll in cornmeal and fry up, anything tastes like chicken, even frogs' legs. But where I came from, that was a delicacy. Anyway, all kinds of creeping things and birds of the air.

Acts 10:13 "And a voice came to him, 'Rise, Peter; kill and eat."

Kill and eat. So, here's a vision. Middle of the day about noon. He's probably in kind of a trance-like state, absorbed in thought, probably thinking about a lot of things. He's gone up probably to pray and to think, and as this happens, does he get drowsy? Does God supernaturally puts something over him?

It doesn't give us all the details, but he's fixed on now something from the realm of the divine, from the spirit realm, a voice and this vision that he has, and he sees it, and to him, in the sense, it's a reality. The voice says, "Peter, rise; kill and eat."

Acts 10:14 "But Peter said, 'Not so, Lord! For I have never eaten anything common or unclean.'"

Right? This is referring to clean and unclean food, according to Leviticus 11, Deuteronomy 14, the specific laws that God gave as part of the teaching to Israel that you do not eat. Very specific listing we all know about there, and Peter is saying here now, many years after the death of Jesus, having, of course, been a practicing Jew and knowing all the law, but now even after Christ's death and having heard Jesus expound the law in that 40-day period from His resurrection to His ascension, and not hearing obviously anything that would do away with this part of the Mosaic law in terms of what is clean and unclean, what can be eaten, cannot be eaten. His immediate response, "I've never done this," right

Acts 10:15-16 "And so a voice spoke to him again the second time, 'What God has cleansed you must not call common.' This was done three times. And the object was taken up into heaven again."

So, what is Peter seeing? What is he being told? We'll come back in the next class and we'll pick it up at verse 17, and we'll discuss that, and show exactly what Peter is being shown as he deals with the people God is calling into the church. We'll pick that up next time in the next class.